Amy Held

The Vatican department charged with overseeing Catholic education released an extensive document Monday decrying what it calls a "crisis" on whether gender can be an individual choice rather than being set by God or biology.

The document describes a culture-wide "disorientation" that serves to "cancel out" the natural difference between man and woman, as well as "destabilise the family as an institution."

Los Angeles County's Santa Anita Park is standing firm against calls to cancel the rest of its racing season after the deaths of two more horses over the weekend, bringing the number of horses that have died at the track since December to 29.

In a highly unusual move Saturday, the California Horse Racing Board asked the park to scuttle competition for the seven remaining race days to "provide the industry more time to fully implement announced safety initiatives and perhaps additional ones."

Facebook says it removed 3.39 billion fake accounts from October to March. That's twice the number of fraudulent accounts deleted in the previous six-month period.

Updated at 5:20 p.m. ET

A day after flames leaped through Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris sparking fears the beloved building could be consumed, Parisians sang and prayed in processions through the streets and held vigils Tuesday evening close to the church constructed more than eight centuries ago.

The cathedral stood blackened with much of its roof gone, its spire collapsed and charred rubble inside, but it remained standing, its main structure and two towers spared.

Updated on Tuesday at 5:25 a.m. ET

Notre Dame Cathedral, one of the world's most famous churches, erupted in flames Monday in Paris, losing its spire but remaining otherwise largely intact after firefighters worked through the night to contain the fire.

Updated at 12:30 p.m. ET

The U.S. Strategic Command is charged with controlling the nation's nuclear operations, but conceded it missed the mark with a New Year's Eve tweet comparing the famed ball drop to a B-2 bomber dropping weapons.

"TimesSquare tradition rings in the #NewYear by dropping the big ball...if ever needed, we are #ready to drop something much, much bigger," read the now-deleted tweet from Stratcom's official account.

A quick glance at the place where West Alexis and Secor roads meet in Toledo, Ohio, reveals just another intersection of concrete and capitalism: A Western Union, a gym and a chicken joint frame the flow of traffic. But out of a crack in the curb, a scrawny weed pushes forth that has come to embody a city's holiday cheer.

University of Toledo student Alyssa Emrick, 20, tells NPR that she and her family had often driven past the weed recently on their way to and from church. Then on Dec. 9, a light went off for her father, Troy.

This #MeToo-era-cum-yuletide-season, radio stations are pulling the plug on that holiday earworm with lyrics that, to some, ring date-rape warning bells, rather than evoking innocent snow-bound flirtation.

More than 2,500 tons of raw beef are being added to a recall in connection with a salmonella outbreak that federal officials say has sickened hundreds of people across 25 states.

Dog owners are advised to check labels and remain alert to symptoms of vitamin D toxicity, after the FDA issued a warning that it found excessive — and possibly toxic — levels of the nutrient in certain dry dog foods and some pets have exhibited signs of the poisoning.

The dog foods all come from a single as-yet-unnamed manufacturer and are marketed under at least eight brand names including Abound, Orlando and Natural Life, sold at Kroger, Lidl and other retailers, the FDA said.